Has anyone ever worked out why their demon was being fat?

[bluetrampolines]

I know how to diet. I know how to exercise. I have every aspect of my life nailed. Almost. Apart from being fat.

Why is this my demon? Can anyone help?

@postnot

thank you for being so kind. As you say, today's another day... Hopefully one day I'll get to the point I just don't feel this way about food, this odd, panicky, obsessive relationship. But for now I just need to survive and not keep poisoning myself! Lying awake feeling sick from secret overeating has to be up there with the most horrible, shaming, despairing feelings in the world.

I had forgotten a really useful way of eating, it makes us healthy and slim! it's not a diet as such.

It's called Food Combining which just means no CC you just DON'T combine carbs and protein at the same meal; so instead of a bacon sandwich (if you eat meat ) you have a marmite and salad sandwich. And you eat lamb and plenty of greens with mashed parsnips not with potatoes. Also you eat fruit on it's own when you're hungry. Not after a meal, I cured my IBS and arthritis doing it. So brilliant all round! I make an apple crumble with a ground almond\or walnut topping (no breacrumbs) and eat it on its own with almond cream!

Ennirem Well done for having a go !!! Today's another day!!

This is interesting. I do think a lot of it must have to do with our parents attitudes to food and what we were fed as children. I think I was lucky in that respect and I've never really had a big issue with food or my weight. I have a friend though who had a difficult home life and her parents would give her food to make her feel better (think cake not broccoli). So she associates food with comfort. My parents didn't do this and they always fed me home-cooked meals and we never ever went to fast food places or had takeaways (except for the odd chippy supper) so these things just weren't on my radar I guess. I do binge on sugary/carby things occasionally and I think it's to do with lack of energy for me personally as it's always happens when my sleeping has been bad.

My DM put me on my first diet when I was 4. I have a swimmers body (strong and as sleek as a tuna) but she wanted me to be tall and willowy. I have had a life time of binge eating disorders. We moved house when I was 15 and she held up a top that I'd been given when I was 9 and said she'd keep it in case I ever became anorexic.

At secondary school my tea would consist of one slice of cheese on toast. My metabolism is completed fcked.

That's terrible ILikeCake She's the one with the problem.

I remember being 4 or 5 and my Mum saying if I ate an apple I could have a chocolate bar.

Honestly I've ditched my demon for the first time in about 30 years! I lost 5 stones and have kept it off. I don't do any exercise, I'd love too but time and physical issues put me off.
There is a lot of pressure when you lose weight to 'keep it off' you feel like everyone is waiting for you to fail so often you'll just do it first
I also suffered with a refusal to accept my new sizes, despite being comfortable in a 10, I always pick up size 16's for changing rooms.
I eat a low carb, high protein, low sugar diet.
I got the bulk of the weight off with a vcld and then reintroduced food that kept me in ketosis for the remainder.

I believe the reason it's stayed off is because I no longer crave the things I did. My tastes have completely changed.
When I've tried SW/WW etc, being able to have tiny treats led to me binging and giving up whereas I've now got little to no interest in them.
I feel like I've finally reached a point where I'm no longer consumed with either worrying about what I'm eating, or guilt, anger.
If I go away, or nights out, I eat and drink whatever I want with thinking I've ruined myself and just hop back onto my horse the next day.
I feel so much better, less tired, sluggish, skin good, no bloating - this serves as a great incentive for me.
My mum has just lost a similar amount with SW, it's truly about finding what works for you personally.

Post

Do you have kids? How do you approach teaching yoir children about a healthy attitude to food?

Having "every aspect of your life nailed" apart from being fat I would argue, is impossible.
Being fat or constantly thinking about what you're going to eat next or being stuck in a cycle of bingeing or sugar addiction are all very pervasive things which absolutely impact every aspect of ones life especially your risk of diabetes, cancer and bowel problems.
I am a compulsive overeater and the only place I have found that has broken me out of it is Overeaters Anonymous meetings and fellowship.
I would highly recommend this amazing program but be prepared to dig deep.
good luck.

I'm an emotional eater. It's my go to when I'm sad or stressed or celebrating something.

I tried to read "Fat is a Feminist Issue" that someone was talking about earlier in the thread and I had to stop because it was upsetting me actually. Some of what I remember (it was quite a while ago), she seemed to say that overeating is a form of self harm, but you can still function through it. So where one person might drink or take drugs when they are stressed, and it would help in the short term (not long term because of the addiction aspect), I don't do that because I still need to be able to function to look after the kids, to work, to help out with my parents, etc. So I eat. It releases the same endorphins as a lot of other coping strategies but you can still function, you're not left with a hangover, you can still drive, etc. Other people might choose to exercise as a stress relief, but that takes time, and I don't always have the time to exercise when I'm feeling stressed but I do always have the time to stuff a bar of chocolate down my throat. Same endorphins, same short term feeling better, less time taken out of my day and I can continue working in a slightly better frame of mind.

I feel like my overeating is an addiction, much the same as alcoholics, or smokers are addicted. But you can't stop eating completely, overeaters anonymous meetings aren't as widespread as AA meetings (there are 4 local AA meetings I could go to if I was an alcoholic, there's 1 OA meeting locally and it's at a time when I'm working). I really do think there's something working in my brain to sabotage my relationship with food, but it would take some long term introspection or weekly therapy to get to the source of it, and I can't fit that into my life right now, other things take priority. So I'm stuck with the cycle of dieting (which I can do for a couple of months then I fall of the wagon when I get busy and stressed again) then overeating. It sucks, but I don't have the time or head space to change it right now. Maybe once the kids are older and don't need so much input, or maybe something else will take up that time instead.

Yes I do, teens now and neither have weight problem, the opposite really which has caused its own issues. Had a bit of a scare the other day with DS (15) having fallen into underweight category having grown again but scales were thankfully wrong. He could do with putting on a few pounds to keep up with his upwards growth so we’re trying to do this in a healthy way without throwing lots of rubbish down him but they both naturally seem to self regulate that. I took an everything in moderation approach and tried to appear relaxed about food even if I didn’t feel it.

DD is 19 and struggled to keep her weight up for years but metabolism seems to be changing a bit and more on an equilibrium. They both take after DH’s side of the family where all the toddlers are majorly fussy eaters. I thought what a load of bollocks when I heard that but had to eat my words as it did indeed come to pass ! DH was very very thin during his teens and it’s only in late 40’s that he’s ever had an extra few pounds to shift. I do think there is a genetic component in play there.

This is a fascinating thread. Just saying “eat less move more” is so facile and cannot havr helped anyone. Figuring out what the root cause is - now that is interesting. Thank you for sharing different views.

@ILikeCake - that's so cruel. i wonder if she had any idea she was being cruel or whether she thought she was helping you be a long willowy thing because she so wanted that herself?

.

For anyone, like me, who has binge eating issues would recommend Brain Over Binge.

It talks about the cravings, “triggers” etc and offers an explanation of how these things relate to how the brain works. The focus is on managing the impulses etc rather than analysing the psychological reasons for overeating.

Thank you 

DM is very judgemental about physical appearance. My SIL is a yoga teacher but even she gets criticised (behind her back) over the size of her bum - which, to me, is a beautiful 10 hours of yoga a week bum.

I think I've broken the cycle with my own kids who are tall and lanky - I never made them finish their plates, I gave them small portions with the option of seconds or thirds, they have healthy home cooked food and they know they can go out for ice cream if they want it. DD is a student and she cooks vegetarian meals from scratch and will leave food if she doesn't want it. I think it's all about balance.

Comtesse, it is very interesting and I think shows how many of us have disordered eating behaviour for a wide variety of reasons.

I was tested as part of a university research project to see if I had the genes that are more likely to incline you to be fat. You can have none of them, one of them or two of them. Those with two are more likely to be overweight & those with none are very unlikely to be overweight, with those with one showing a higher liklihood but less than those with the two genes. I had one gene.

So, there are definitely genetic tendencies.

There is also increasing evidence that those with messed up childhood attachments are more at risk of disordered eating. Julia Buckroyd has written a book about this, which is worth looking at if you have a childhood that was less secure than it should have been. I have so many issues there, that I could apply almost everything she wrote about to my eating habits.

There is also evidence that societal norms exert considerable pressure. The societal norms at the moment are still that slim is best and certainly when I was introduced to the wider world, magazines, advertisements, films etc back in the 1980s - slim was the only option.

Then there is the fact that never before in human history has an abundance of food been available. Never ever! We are truly human guinea pigs and who knows, global warming or the next ice age or something else, could mean it never happens again - but for now that is our reality.

So, take your pick - probably take a bit from all of it and that goes some way to explaining why we struggle.

Until you weigh your food for a week or so, you won’t know exactly what the issue is (ie emotional eating or something more sinister). I discovered my being fat was a medical issue when I discovered I was maintaining my then 90kg weight on an average of 1.3k calories per day despite ‘burning’ 800-900 per day on walks / sports etc. My pcos diagnosis meant I’m now on the right meds, have lost heaps of weight and am maintaining it too without having to watch what I eat.

It's hard because we cannot altogether avoid food (unlike cigarettes or gambling). If you are someone whose normal diet does not keep them slim (i.e. most people), then achieving slimness will be a constant battle, every waking hour, for the rest of your life. It's no wonder almost everybody fails at it.

I've tried loads of diets. They all work. And I can't stick to any of them long-term. So they all fail. The answer is to either find the mythical dieting holy grail (effective and maintainable) or to give up and make peace with your weight.

Here's my final attempt at the holy grail: 1) no food between 8pm and 12 noon the next day 2) no sweet stuff Monday to Friday. I find 2) much harder than 1)!

Almost every reply you'll get to a "Why can't I lose weight?!" thread will be a suggestion for yet another diet. Often involving cutting out whole food groups or spending hours of your life weighing, measuring and logging foods. Most of us would probably be slimmer now if we had simply never bothered jumping on that first diet bandwagon in our teens/twenties. And yet here we all are, many of us in our 40s or 50s, still torturing ourselves and getting nowhere! I find it so depressing to think how much time in my life I've wasted thinking about diet and slimnesss.

I used to use food as an emotional crutch.

Fucking awful relationship, shit job. When I was stressed I used to comfort eat like mad. A whole box of triple chocolate cookies whilst I was marking my bloody useless BTEC group coursework, for instance.

It took alot of time for me to sever that connection. I still DO eat a little bit out of comfort sometimes. But I've really disciplined myself and reigned it in.

It takes time I think to get out of it and look at why you eat what you eat. Is it comfort? Are you boredom eating? Are you eating when you actually need water? Are you addicted to sugar? Are there certain things you can't stop eating once you've had one?

For instance, I find Aero Chocolate Orange bars irresistible. I can't just have one square of it. I'd easily eat the whole bar. But the amount of sugar is dire. So I limit myself to 4 pieces a day. Then walk away.

Also, it easy to start off with good intentions, lowering calories, healthy meals and such, but a sudden change can result in a big binge after. Its better to make small changes and do it bit by bit. Smaller portion of chips. Replace chips with sweet potato fries. Or replace mash with butternut squash mash. Small things build up over time.

@Knittink you sound so similar to me. Spent my whole adult life yoyo dieting. I must have tried every diet under the sun and lost and gained the same 2-3 stone over and over again. I've never managed to maintain any weight loss. I've no idea what the answer is apart from trying to accept my overweight self. And that's not easy in such an image obsessed society.

Going on a diet is never the answer @ArabellaUmbrella

Keeping the weight off comes from permanent lifestyle changes, which is never easy. It requires changing eating habits that have quite often been established for many, many years.

The problem with a diet or even thinking of it as a diet, is that eventually they come to an end when someone has reached their goal weight. They then stop eating the way they were and revert to the same stuff before the diet.

They are simply unsustainable. They usually require a huge deficit of calories all of a sudden, cutting out whole meals or as you say, whole food groups (!) and replacing them with empty shakes or snacks. Terrible.

I love a good binge and used to be quite portly, this further compounded by previously undiagnosed hormonal problem. I can easily eat 7k calories in a day!

I managed to lose almost all of it and have a rugby player's build now. In a few months time I'll likely have visible abs if I can keep it up.

The key for me was weight training - it allows me to eat an amount which would make the average person fat. I also do intermittent fasting which probably wouldn't work for some but works great for me. I have a small breakfast (e.g. protein shake and banana) and then nothing (well maybe a banana or literally a few carrots) until supper, at which point I eat almost 2000 cals in one meal.

I get to pig out every day and stay within my 2300 calories. I generally eat reasonably healthy but have at least 1-2 days a week where I nail a pizza and tub of B&J, still staying within my calories. I'm so used to it now I don't really get hungry in the day anymore.